I came to Jane's work through the Winchester records on the REED pre-publication site.  They are an impressive and generous legacy to the rest of us.  I'm so glad that she had the chance to see them published and to contribute to the launch of the site.

Sarah

  On 05/01/2015 17:37, Twycross, Meg wrote:
Oh dear.  I am sorry.  She was great.

There's too much of it about.

Love, Meg

________________________________________
From: REED-L: Records of Early English Drama Discussion [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of McGavin J.J. [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 05 January 2015 17:34
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Jane Cowling

Dear Peter
What a wonderful tribute and memorial. Thank you so much. I have forwarded this to the English department and to the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Culture and to Medieval English Theatre. All will be glad to receive it. You have really done Jane proud in every way.
Kindest wishes and thanks
John

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From: REED-L: Records of Early English Drama Discussion [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Peter Greenfield [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 05 January 2015 17:15
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Jane Cowling

Members of the REED community--
It is with a heavy heart that I have to report that Jane Cowling, co-editor of the Hampshire collection for REED, died recently in Brecon, Wales, after a brief illness. After a career in the Navy and raising two children, Jane decided to return to university as a mature student, gaining a BA and then a PhD at the University of Southampton, where she worked with John McGavin. Her doctoral thesis was an edition of the dramatic records of Winchester and Winchester College from 1558-1642, following REED protocols. When Jane and I decided to work together to edit the records of all of Hampshire for REED, she extended her work on Winchester back to the fourteenth century, and also edited records from Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.  The majority of her edited records are now available on the REED Pre-Publication Collections website (www.reedprepub.org), with the rest to appear in the next few months. Jane also publ
ished interpretive articles on this research in Medieval English !
 Theatre, Research Opportunities in Medieval and Renaissance Drama, and Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England.

I shall greatly miss collaborating with Jane, not least getting to play good cop in our good cop/bad cop act when confronted with archive staff reluctant to let us see a document because it was too damaged, or too late in the day, etc. Jane’s bad cop, seemingly equal parts naval officer and imperious lady of the manor, simply refused to believe that a reasonable person wouldn’t accede to our request--and soon we would have the document in our hands. My knowledge of Hampshire comes as much from traveling the county with Jane as from research in the archives; she was a generous colleague and a wonderful friend. She will be missed by the REED community. Yours,
Peter Greenfiel


-- 
Sarah Carpenter
English Literature
School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
University of Edinburgh
50 George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9LH